All posts by Roberto Gaetano

Members and observers

News

Following the membership indication, the Board has allowed applicants to our Association that are neither nationals of, nor resident of, the ICANN Region of Europe to join as observers. The observers will have the same rights and duties as the “regular” members, except that they will not have the right to vote.
We have contacted all applicants that have expressed their wish to join our Association, but did not fulfil the nationality or residency requirement, and asked them whether they would accept to be observers. At the deadline, we had two out of four applicants who have accepted the offer.
With this addition we have today 33 members and 2 observers.

Our Association survey: results & lessons learned

News

In June 2016 the Board sent a survey to Members, in order to gain a more accurate knowledge of their views and expectations. At the time, the tool and methodology we used did not provide the necessary functions for a proper survey. This is why a new survey was conducted in January 2017, the results of which you can now consult here.

In addition to the very useful information thus gathered, here are some remarks:

  1. A majority of Members (15 out of 25) responded. In most cases, they had learned about our Association through ICANN circles, and in fact many are already involved in ICANN through Working Groups and/or ALAC (At-Large Advisory Committee). Our Members present quite a variety of profiles (in this order of decreasing frequency): Internet governance, Internet user experience, sociological aspects, ICANN policy, technical issues, legal issues. Areas of professional expertise and interest are quite evenly distributed: IGF and academic fora share first place, followed by legal, business and technical fora (in that descending order).
  2. Our Members look to the Association and its website for information on Internet governance in general (1st place in responses), to get to know other individual Internet users (2nd); information about ICANN, which is widely available through other channels, comes in 3rd place. Respondents consider that our website should provide « current policy issues in ICANN » (1st place), closely followed by upcoming events (ICANN, Internet Governance Forum IGF…), and links to other fora.
  3. Our Members are interested in contributing to the ICANN policy-making process (1st place), rather than being simply informed (2nd). With this in mind, respondents think that joining a Working Group is the most efficient way (1st place), or consider being a candidate for a leadership position in an ICANN structure (2nd). With regard to becoming involved in the work of our Association, a number of respondents are willing to participate in, or if necessary to set up a Working Group, or calling for and being a candidate for a position on an enlarged Board of our Association (both 1st place), but only 2 respondents have actually volunteered.

At is next meeting, your Board will consider the lessons learned from this survey, and will act accordingly in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Best regards,

Jean-Jacques Subrenat, Chair